


Decessit vita matris

by TinyFakeFanficRock



Series: Ad meliora [16]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Child Loss, Gen, Tribal Courier, bereavement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:47:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22219546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinyFakeFanficRock/pseuds/TinyFakeFanficRock
Summary: The solace of common ground isn't always where you'd expect.
Relationships: Craig Boone/Female Courier, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Rose of Sharon Cassidy/Veronica Santangelo
Series: Ad meliora [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/635180
Comments: 15
Kudos: 39





	Decessit vita matris

Mel set her pack and heavier boots by the door, then doubled back to add a sweatshirt. Jacobstown was cold the same way Flagstaff was. At least the company was better.

"Hey, Mel, wanna play Mutated Twos with Ronnie and me?" Cass called from the kitchen. 

Mel hesitated. She did like playing Mutated Twos -- unlike Caravan, it required no arithmetic. If it was just Cass and Veronica, though, she didn't want to intrude on them. She was leaving early tomorrow anyway. But Cass didn't issue invitations just to be polite; if she asked, she meant it. And when Mel rounded the corner, they'd even already made space for her. "I can stay for a few rounds."

Cass grinned, poured shots of whiskey for everyone, and handed Mel the deck of cards. "Jacobstown for you again tomorrow, right?"

"Mmm-hmm." Mel shuffled, dealt, and turned up the first card.

"Why do you always go to Lily's checkups? She could totally handle going on her own. She's one badass granny." Veronica looked over her hand, made a face, and went for the draw pile.

"Yes, but she's also very kind, trusting, and obliging, so I want her to have backup if she wants to say no to something."

"You don't think Doc Henry would really take advantage of her?"

 _I'm not sure, and I can't discuss why._ "We've seen too many experiments that put science above people. I don't even want to take the chance."

Cass nodded agreement. "Plus if she has one of those spells where she just kinda shuts down, someone's there to help."

"That's true. Well, tell Calamity we said hi."

They shared the whiskey and a bowl of not-too-stale pretzels while they chatted, warm and pleasant, and occasionally remembered to play a card. Eventually they started swapping "would you rather" questions whose topic quickly narrowed to food.

Cass got a wicked gleam in her eyes. "So would you rather eat Cram or Pork 'n' Beans?"

"I pick starvation," Veronica blurted, drawing a glare from Cass.

"Cram, definitely," said Mel before they could get into another mock argument about whether _neither_ was a permissible answer. It was an easy choice, anyway. "It's just salty meat. Pork 'n' Beans is ... a mess. Craig's the only person I've ever seen eat it, and I don't know how he can."

Cass played a Gomorrah seven of spades. "Obviously you've never eaten NCR rations, then. God, have I thanked you lately for getting me the hell out of the Outpost? Because fucking _thank you_."

"Ditto. For getting her out of the Outpost --" Veronica shot a sweet smile Cass's way -- "and because Brotherhood rations suck, too. I hope I never have to eat anything from a box again. Except Fancy Lads. That's different."

Cass waggled her eyebrows. "That's the only way any kind of lad is getting in your mouth, isn't it?"

Mel laughed mid-drink, then spluttered and pressed a napkin to her face. "Dammit, Cass, you of all people ought to know how much whiskey out the nose burns. Veronica, your question."

"Well, okay then, since we're talking about old-timey food anyway, Fancy Lads or Dandy Boy Apples?"

That one was also easy. "Oh, the Dandy Boy Apples. They don't really taste anything like apples, but ... I just like them."

"Aha!" crowed Veronica.

Cass squinted at her. "Huh?"

" _Now_ I know why Boone always gets a box of those when it's his turn to buy food even though I have never seen him eat even one."

 _Did he really?_ Mel tried to think of an instance that disproved it, but couldn't. _Huh._ "My turn," she said, loudly enough to cut through Cass's laughter. "Bighorner meat or Brahmin?"

"Brahmin," answered Veronica almost immediately. "Bighorner's a little gamey."

Cass thought it over a little longer. "Depends. If we're having it as a steak, I pick Brahmin, 'cause yeah, Veronica's right. If it's one of your casseroles, though, definitely Bighorner. The flavor really works in those."

"Oooh, yeah, my answer there should not be taken as any kind of criticism of your cooking. I do not want to piss off the chef who makes the golden meals," she said with an exaggerated bow in Mel's direction.

She waved off the blatant flattery with a laugh and a _pffft_ , and then it was Cass's turn again. "Would you rather give up eating bread or eggs?"

"Eggs. I actually have given them up for a while. When I was pregnant, I couldn't even stand the smell of them cooking." She dropped her eyes to her empty glass. It was clearly time for her to stop drinking -- that was more than she'd meant to say. And even sober, memories of her pregnancy only ever ended in loss.

Cass and Veronica fell silent, exchanging glances that clearly said, _Do you know what to say to that? Me neither._

Mel considered their serious faces and sighed. She'd gotten too comfortable with them and made them uncomfortable as a result. "Sorry. Didn't mean to be a killjoy." She looked at the cards on the table and added a Tops seven of clubs from her hand, hoping to draw their attention back to the game.

Veronica played an Ultra-Luxe three of clubs and said hurriedly, "No, no, it's fine. Hey, I can't stand eggs either when I'm hung over," before tacking on a quiet, "but I know that's not the same."

"I'm not offended," Mel told them quietly. "But I do need to get to bed." She added her hand to the bottom of the discard pile, washed her plate and glass, and retreated to her room.

It was all right. It was good that they didn't understand.

\---

Pumpkin wasn't herself today, not really. Oh, she made her mouth turn up when she said good morning, but she didn't mean it. It didn't seem like her usual silly worries about the visits to Doc Henry, either. Lily mulled it over as they climbed the hill, remembering to step small and slowly so Pumpkin and her young man -- he'd come along, too, claiming an errand of his own -- could keep pace.

It was quiet outside, but of course that was never the case in her head. _She didn't chop anything but food yesterday, that's why. We'll chop things today._

 _Oh, for pity's sake, Leo. She's not us -- not_ you.

 _No, but the bad man got her, too,_ murmured the quiet chorus that had also been with her ever since the change.

"Oh, you hush," she said, and only Pumpkin's quizzical look told her she'd done so aloud. She patted Pumpkin's head reassuringly and then continued, lips pressed hard together to be sure it was just in her head, _She doesn't like talking about what you tell me. Remember last time, when I asked her about the metal trees you said she missed? Made her sad. Mustn't make Pumpkin sad. And look, she's too young. Bad man's been gone ... twenty years? A hundred? A thousand? ... a long time now._

There was a lot of blood in those days. So much. Sometimes Lily still saw it splattered on the road or on the walls of Pumpkin's big house. She wished there were something to fight on this road. Then the blood would be real and she wouldn't have to remember what was there and what wasn't. Keeping track was exhausting enough that Lily pulled in and turned off for a while, trusting Pumpkin and her young man to look out for her.

When she surfaced, Pumpkin was asking, "What's going on at Foxtrot, Craig?"

"Nothing big. They just get forgotten about all the way up there, so I'm taking 'em a package of the nice stuff the NCR doesn't pay for -- candy, couple comics, mostly fresh socks." He held it up so they could see it.

"Why not send it with me? I _am_ a courier, after all." She added a quiet _heh_ , but didn't smile.

"The commander there's married to my cousin, so I figure I should at least show my face."

Lily approved, and said so. "Considerate _and_ polite. He's a good one, Pumpkin."

She ducked her head, _mmm_ ed agreement, and pushed forward a little faster, her boot leaving a little whorl in the dirt between broken bits of road. People could track her from that, probably were. Pumpkin kept secrets, was a dangerous person.

But she was also very kind to Lily. Took care of her, really. Not her job, not in the natural order of things: grandparents care for parents who care for grandkids and eventually grandparents too. Grandkids should be doted on, not babysitting their grandparents.

Lily's son, however, could no longer care for her, not after the change went wrong. She didn't protect him right.

 _The dip didn't like how much time Steven spent on the Vault reactor. Not your fault._ It was always a little unsettling when the chorus tried to console her. Again, not their job.

Jimmy and Becky changed all the way, though. They could still be out there. Every time she visited Jacobstown, Lily checked to see if they'd arrived. Not yet. Always not yet.

So it was good she could help out Pumpkin while she waited for them to find their way. Anita could handle the Bighorners just fine. After all, she'd been Vault security, and that was really just herding people.

Lily was tired again, and trudged on automatically until the beginning of the evergreen trees, when Pumpkin's young man veered off down a dirt path for his errand. It was just as well, really; no one at Jacobstown liked his hat, and he wouldn't take it off.

Further up the hill, almost to town, Leo barked an alert: _Strange humans._ There were five of them, facing away, one standing square in the middle of the road, all heavily armed and armored. Or were there? Were they real? She looked to Pumpkin to gauge the situation. She had also stopped and was eyeing them, so probably real.

 _Chop these?_ asked Leo hopefully.

"We might have to," Lily murmured.

"Come out, you mutie fucks!" bellowed one of them, and Lily reflexively engaged her Stealth Boy. _Now flank them and chop the one with the grenade launcher. Take it and blow up the others._

She took a step forward before she felt Pumpkin's little hand on her wrist and forced herself to focus. _No, no, wait!_

"Excuse me?" Pumpkin called out in reply. She was always so polite.

He jumped a little and looked behind him. "Our business is with the muties, not you," he told her dismissively, turning away as if she'd already left.

Rudeness never dissuaded Pumpkin, though. "And what, exactly, is that business?"

He huffed a sigh and faced her again. "Just doing what I'm paid to do -- harass the muties until they leave or attack us. If they leave, we let 'em go. If they attack, we wipe 'em out. Job's not done until they're cleared out of the town."

"But why?" Lily flinched before she realized that Pumpkin had said it, not her. "They're not bothering anyone all the way up here."

The man shrugged, as if he really didn't care why he was threatening everything Marcus and the others had built. "Some important folks in the NCR are sick of muties attacking their Brahmin herds. They want them gone from NCR territory."

"But this group doesn't even leave their town. They can't be the attackers." Lily was grateful for Leo's focus helping her follow the conversation, and for precious Pumpkin, defending them like this.

"Maybe, maybe not, but muties are muties, little lady, and we're getting paid to make them go away. Now move along before you get hurt."

 _They had better not!_ Lily clenched her fists. She needed to keep a lid on her indignation or else Leo was going to get out.

Pumpkin's scornful laugh made Lily wonder if Leo was going to get what he wanted after all, especially when she walked right up to the mercenaries' leader and examined him closely. "What's your name?"

"Norton. You think you're gonna scare me getting in my face?"

She took a step back. "Oh, I didn't mean to intimidate you. I just want to be able to give a good description to Colonel Moore when she wants to know who opened up a second front in the war. There _are_ other groups of super mutants who'll want to avenge Jacobstown, and, well, humans are humans."

"Like you even know who Colonel Moore --" He broke off and looked her over like he was actually paying attention this time. "Hey, are you that tribal girl they talked about on the radio -- the courier? The one from Nelson and Boulder City and the monorail?"

She sighed. "My name is Mel. But yes, that's me."

His jaw hung open a moment before he recovered enough to say, "Well, hell. Look, politics aren't my thing, so if you think this is a bad idea, we'll go. No hard feelings, ma'am." He waved his men off, and they started retracing the road down the mountain.

Once they disappeared around the bend, Lily reluctantly flickered back into view. "Thank you, Pumpkin. I'm so proud of you."

Pumpkin hugged her and let out a long, shaky breath. But she'd sounded so calm! Maybe Pumpkin was more like her than she thought.

After a few moments, Pumpkin said, "I couldn't let them take your home, too."

 _Too_? Well, the Master certainly wasn't the last bad man in the Wasteland.

\---

A pack of NCR mercenaries run off by a single tribal. It'd be funny if the stakes weren't so high. Still, Mel was pleased that they didn't have to fight, and also that she'd built a formidable reputation of her own without having to resort to her husband's methods.

Marcus met them at the gate, apparently unfazed by the close call; he even complimented how she'd handled the mercenaries. They left Lily with Arcade's uncle -- no new procedures today. Mel passed along Veronica and Cass's greetings to Calamity, then headed for the Bighorner corral, where she usually helped out to pass the time.

Marcus accompanied her. "You remind me of this kid I used to run with decades ago. Smart, talked things out when they could, fought well when they couldn't. Tribal, too. Similarities end there, though. They talked more in ten minutes than you do all day and flirted with everyone. That got us into some trouble in New Reno, let me tell you ..."

He continued the tale as she looked over the little herd. There were downy tufts stuck to the fenceposts they rubbed against, so they were ready to have their undercoat combed out. She picked up one of the long-toothed combs, showed it to the Bighorners, and when an older female came to her, Mel started gently freeing the thin layer of soft wool from the coarse guard hairs above.

Several Bighorners and an impressive number of plot twists later, Marcus concluded, "And that's how my Chosen friend just about started a gang war by getting Angela Bishop, Lil' Jesus Mordino, _and_ Chris Wright into a fight for their affections. Still can't believe we made it out of there without the whole city going up."

"I'm glad you did. Thank you for the story." If it'd been anyone but Marcus telling it, she might not have believed a word. He really wasn't given to exaggeration, though. This "Chosen One" must have been a very exciting traveling companion.

He smiled. "My pleasure. Everybody else here knows all my stories. It's good to have a listener who isn't sick of them. But I've gone on long enough. Chores to do."

She thanked him again and he went to chop wood nearby while she kept combing. Not long after, a shadow approached the corral, someone large enough that Mel immediately dropped her eyes to the ground. It was likely Anita coming to feed the Bighorners, but Mel remained behind the young male she was working on and hummed a two-tone greeting that could be taken as idle noise if she was wrong and it was someone who'd prefer not to be noticed.

"Bird-girl, hello!" Mel waved over the Bighorner's back in response; that was definitely Anita, who was unusually outgoing for a Nightkin -- so much so that she gave names to Lily's friends rather than calling them by their species. Mel appreciated that, even if Anita's choice for her was uncomfortably revealing. Nightkin just picked up on things sometimes, even things they couldn't possibly have found out. Lily sometimes made references that made Mel wonder just how much she knew about her, and when Anita first introduced herself, she patted Mel heavily on the shoulder and said reassuringly, "Don't worry. No foxes here."

Eerie as they were, though, these statements were also cryptic enough that anyone else listening wasn't likely to learn anything new. Anita wasn't going to hurt her just by knowing things -- however she knew them. Mel resettled herself, finished combing the herd, and handed Anita the sack of wool just as Lily approached.

"All done, Pumpkin," she said, peering at the sack. "My, you've been busy! So kind of you. We should give you some pocket-money for helping out."

"Oh, Marcus pays me in stories and that's just right," Mel reassured her. "Besides, it's the least I can do since you've been gone helping _me_."

"Mmm, that's true, isn't it?" Lily grew serious. "I'm sorry about that, Anita. I left you getting to know them all right when they're about to start getting rowdy for mating season."

"No, no, good for you to go with bird-girl," Anita replied. "Head voices say her baby gone too."

It took her breath away, hearing it said so matter-of-factly. Anita moved on, asking Lily questions about the Bighorners' temperaments, but Mel barely listened. Her satisfaction from earlier hollowed out and collapsed into a cold lump in her chest. That reputation of hers -- her entire _life_ now -- was built on Leo's nonexistent grave. If he'd been alive, she'd never have left him in Flagstaff, and escaping with him would have been all but impossible. Gurges's armor had gotten her out unquestioned, but no centurion left town carrying a two-year-old. She couldn't picture it working -- couldn't even picture a two-year-old Leo.

She squeezed her eyes shut tight for a moment and when she opened them again, a little drier, Anita was gone and Lily was at her side. "Pumpkin, I didn't know you're a mother, too."

"Not a good one," Mel told her flatly. "They took my baby and then he died."

She expected that to shut the conversation down, but instead Lily lifted Mel's chin with one thick finger and said, low and raw, "If that makes you a bad mother, then so am I. My Steven died when they tried to change him." She gestured at herself to make it clear she meant mutation. No wonder Lily spoke often of her grandchildren, but never of their parents. Between her enthusiastic mothering of them all and her fearsome battle prowess, it was easy to forget just how much Lily had been through.

Mel touched Lily's hand. "I'm sorry." What else was there to say?

To her surprise, Lily took her hand and continued. "They got the Overseer's list of all our names. Checked us off when they dipped us. Marked Steven down as 'failure'. It wasn't right -- he was a very smart boy. He knew how to fix the Vault's reactor. Not a failure at all."

Mel nodded. "My son was supposed to grow up, be a soldier like his father, win many battles -- outlive me. But he was only three months old when the sweating sickness took him. In the records next to his name it said _decessit vita matris_. It translates to 'died in the lifetime of the mother', but the way everyone acted it might as well have said 'failure'." That was more truth about Leo than Mel had ever spoken aloud, and even as she knew what else she'd revealed, it seemed worth it to give an account of his life to someone who knew what it meant.

Lily patted her hand and asked gently, "What was his name?"

"Leo." How would she react to that coincidence? When Lily's memories were this clear, her Leo was also much closer to the surface.

"Not like mine, I'm sure." She gave a wry, gravelly little chuckle, and Mel let go of the breath she'd been holding.

"Once the Legion was through with him, he would have been. Sometimes I --" she hesitated, but it felt dishonest to accept Lily's kindness without admitting the shameful truth -- "sometimes I think he's better off this way. That's why I'm a bad mother." She shut her eyes again, but this time the tears fell anyway.

Instead of pulling away, Lily now clasped Mel's hand with both of hers. "Pumpkin, I -- I don't think Steven would have been happy like this either. But I don't think it makes us bad. We just don't want our babies to hurt."

"Or to hurt somebody else," Mel murmured, and to her shock, Lily began to cry, too. But Steven, like Leo, would also have been a living weapon, and likely meant even less than that to his bastard overlord. Lily had been through it herself. _And you reminded her of that._ More words wouldn't make anything better, so Mel tried hugging her.

The hug she got in return lifted her off her feet, and she dropped her head onto the remaining tatters of Lily's ancient sweater and wept freely along with her friend.

Afterward, Lily set her down and looked her over. "I'm sorry, Pumpkin. You needed a hug and instead you gave me one while I cried all over you. Here, let me dry you off." She pulled a handkerchief, dingy lace still clinging to one edge, from the pouch at her belt.

"I cried on you, too. It's all right," Mel reassured her automatically while Lily dabbed at her face and shoulders.

What a stupid thing to say. It wasn't all right. None of this was all right. But it helped that _someone_ understood. Internally Mel recoiled from the feeling. _Lily's pain should not make you feel better. That's monstrous._ Mel could have gone on despising herself the entire way back to New Vegas, but when Craig came to the gate, Anita tapped her on the shoulder and gave her something else to think about.

"Bird-girl, quiet man knows more than he says about horns."


End file.
